Haunted
by Wasurera
Summary: Kikyo's peice of soul becomes one with Kagome's once again, with an unexpected outcome. Kagome/?


Disclaimers (since I realized that I barely put any into my other ficcie, which is soon to be remedied):  No part of Inu-Yasha, from characters to situations, belongs to me.  They are the wondrous creation of my hero, Rumiko Takahashi (she was the first self-made female millionaire in Japan!  *.*)

Ok, I'm not going to abandon my other Inu-Yasha fic.  If anything, this one will be set aside, but I've had it sitting on my computer forever and I decided to go ahead and post it.  It's gonna get weird, and directly after this chapter it will almost become an AU fic.  It's a lot darker than Inu-Yasha; The High school Experience, because I was in a funky mood when I was writing it.  Listening to "And Then (voice Spectral remix)" by Ayumi Hamasaki and "Haunted" by Poe.  Later on I was listening to "Beautiful Life" by Ace of base, but that's mainly for later chapters. The lyrics I use here are from Haunted, which is a great song.  :) 

~And I'm haunted   
By the lives that I have loved   
And actions I have hated   
I'm haunted   
By the lives that wove the web   
Inside my haunted head~

Haunted: Soul fusion

* * *

Kagome's legs slowly crumpled, tossing her body to the ground like a sand-filled rag doll, laying her out on her side. Her eyes were wide and vacant, a flat gray the color of rain-drenched concrete. Her chest still rose and fell and her heart still beat in the cage of her ribs, but its movement was as weak as that of a dieing bird. Blood slowly dribbled from a wound that ripped above her left breast and snaked down and around, ending at the small of her back. The irritated skin around the gash bubbled with poison, administered by the uncaring hand of Sesshoumaru in a moment of annoyance. An arrow jutted from her right shoulder, a wound inflicted by the hand and bow of Kikyo. Both wounds were horrible, and whispered of death to come.  
By all rights she already should have been dead.  
She was not dead, though. She was not going to die. She was too strong for such a small thing as death to bother her now, and so she chose not to accept it. Some other time, perhaps she might allow herself to pass on. She had found oblivion peaceful.  
A pile of cracked and crumbled clay lay in front of her on the ground, leaving nothing save a pile of priestess' garments and an arrow from Kagome's own bow to testify to the fact that it had once been a the clay husk of an angry woman.  
An angry woman that Kagome had killed. A woman who had been living only on a piece of Kagome's soul. A small, angry piece. A piece that had found how easily it could draw power from the souls of others. A piece of soul that had been corrupted, horribly, by the powers and ideas that the demon Naraku had instilled in it.  
A piece of soul that had returned to Kagome's own when she had destroyed Kikyo, melding back into its parent soul.  No longer would she serve the hanyou Naraku. No longer did she need to seek the Shikon Jewel.   
Kagome blinked, vaguely registering that Inu-Yasha was kneeling next to her, bleeding from numerous wounds that would have killed any human, calling out her name. Shippo was next to him, staring at her face anxiously.  
There was no change in her expression when her hands lifted, as though manipulated my Yura's hair, to her shoulder. They grasped the shaft of the arrow and tugged.  
Hard.  
The arrow came loose with a sickening slurping sound, and she held it in front of her for a few moments, unaware of the horrified and fascinated gazes that Inu-Yasha and Shippo had focused on her. She rolled to her side and stood, dimly wondering where Miroku and Sango were, and if Sesshoumaru and Naraku were dead. The little girl who had been following Sesshoumaru—Rin?  Had that been her name?—what had happened to her after Kikyo had torn her soul from her tiny body? After seeing Kikyo steal the girl's soul, all she could remember was the heat of anger at the miko for taking the soul of one so young, the urge to battle and destroy the angry woman that held a small part of her soul.  She had lost track of everything, focusing all of her effort on Kikyo, only once deterred by a careless attack from Sesshoumaru who was himself involved in a battle with his half-brother.  
Not that it mattered anymore. None of them mattered anymore. Not even Inu-Yasha, despite the strong feelings that Kagome and Kikyo had held for him. 

Now the soul was whole again.  
Now the Jewel was part of her again.  
As it was meant to be.  
Now, she had all that she needed.  
Kagome, now one with Kikyo and the Shikon no Tama, turned away from everything. Turned away from everyone.   
She stood up and made her way to the well in the clearing in the center of Inu-Yasha's forest, which had been the battleground and was now bereft of life. She easily shook off the hands of those trying to help her up and hold her back, throwing Inu-Yasha and Shippo back in a wave of power.   
Then she disappeared into the well, wanting to travel to another time—not aiming for any time in particular, though she could now control her flow through time with the power and knowledge that the Shikon no Tama has given her—any time but the one she was in.

 * * *

"Shit! She's gone," Inu-Yasha growled, shaking from head to foot to dislodge any debris that clung to him from is abrupt meeting with the tree that Kagome had thrown him into. Shippo slunk up next to him, his eyes huge with confusion and fear.  
"What was wrong with her? Why was she acting that way?" The fox demon asked. He had merely been flung to the ground, luckily. If he had hit a tree as Inu-Yasha had, he would have snapped into so many pieces.  
Inu-Yasha didn't say anything, staring at the well. That was where her scent... her *wrong* scent, the twisted one, led. She had left. Something told him that this time it was for good.  
"Inu-Yasha...?" Shippo whined, frightened by the half-demon's silence.  
The silence was broken by a by the sound of lightly pounding feet and a streak of white snaking into the well. Inu-Yasha caught a glimpse of striped cheeks on the face and a fluffy tale before Sesshoumaru disappeared into the well with a small girl's body clasped to his chest.  
Inu-Yasha growled and followed Sesshoumaru into the well, a surprised Shippo clinging to his shoulder, knowing that such happenings did not bode well.  
And he had to get his Woman back, damn it.

* * *

~Come here   
No I won't say please   
One more look at the ghost   
Before I'm gonna make it leave   
Come here   
I've got the pieces here   
Time to gather up the splinters   
Build a casket for my tears~   
  



End file.
